What A Beautiful Idea

I received this release from the Sydney Festival Media Unit today. If you missed the beautiful Dawn Chorus performances during the festival, then this is the perfect way to catch one of the highlights of January.


And you can help out the victims of the bushfire tragedy in Victoria all at the same time.

MEDIA RELEASE

February 11 2009

Victorian Bushfires Fundraising Event

Sydney Festival, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and Sydney Opera House present a special performance of

Dawn Chorus

The Monumental Stairs, Sydney Opera House

Sunday February 15, 2009 at 6.00am

Conductor Brett Weymark

Performed by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

The loss of life and massive destruction in the ongoing bushfires in Victoria are devastating. In support of the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal, Sydney Festival, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and Sydney Opera House will present a special fundraising performance of Dawn Chorus on Sunday 15 February on The Monumental Stairs of Sydney Opera House.

Dawn Chorus was part of the 2009 Sydney Festival program. Performed at a different beach each Saturday throughout January, the event featured new and existing choral works, performed by the 120 voices of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. The response was overwhelming, with a total of more than 13,500 people attending.

In support of the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal, Sydney Festival, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and Sydney Opera House are coming together to present a special encore of Dawn Chorus. Festival volunteers will be on hand to collect donations. All donations will go to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

The choir will sing a selection of a Capella works. No staging, no sound amplification, no artificial lighting – just the simplicity of the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs in one of the Australia’s most iconic settings.

The power of Dawn Chorus lies not only in the music, but in the hour of both reflection and quiet hope.

Directed by Brett Weymark, Dawn Chorus features works by Hildegard, Lauridsen, Gorecki and Tavener as well as specially commissioned works by contemporary Australian composers Iain Grandage, Raffaele Marcellino, John Peterson and Dan Walker.

Where The Monumental Stairs, Sydney Opera House
When Sunday February 15 at 6.00am
Duration 45–60 mins, no interval

Price BY DONATION

Information Sydney Festival volunteers will be collecting donations for Red Cross
The Sydney Opera House Wilson Car Park will be open at 5.00am

www.sydneyfestival.org.au

Fine - Keep it a secret

I received the below email yesterday;

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Asphalt Tango Records claiming that this material is infringing:

Fanfare Ciocarlia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmmWUnwXkLM

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to prevent this from happening, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.

Be aware that there may be adverse legal consequences in your country if you make a false or bad faith allegation of copyright infringement by using this process.
Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

© 2009 YouTube, LLC


Compare this attitude to the one employed by the far more successful band - Cinematic Orchestra - who encourage music videos and live performances placed on YouTube and you can see why they are more world renown. They, too, are at the Sydney Festival.

Bare in mind that the 30 second video I placed on YouTube was a public performance in the foyer of a theatre and not in a paid venue. Also consider the great light I put the band in, with most of the video capturing members of the public clapping and smiling, dancing and cheering and you will maybe start to understand my total disbelief.

The management of Asphalt Tango maybe need to consider entering the 21st Century by starting to understand the workings of the new media and how it can be successfully utilised as a vehicle for modern day marketing and publicity.

So, instead of Gypsy Kings and Queens, I have placed for your enjoyment a clip from the far more successful Goran Bregovic and his Weddings and Funeral Band who staged a much better concert last year in Sydney. .

By the way...

Most of you probably thought I had disappeared off the face of the planet with the complete lack of blog updates over the last couple of months. 

Quietly, I have been preparing for the live Sydney Festival blog which I am writing for the Daily Telegraph and launched on Saturday.

There's been some technical problems which are slowly being ironed out with me re-uploading a whole heap of entries and images.

But we are getting there - so if you get the chance, check it out by CLICKING HERE. 

I am now even experimenting by using video in some of the posts to try and capture the mood of the festival - especially when I am surrounded by your average punter - such as last night ...

For what it's worth my picks for the festival are No Dice, Lipsynch, The Pianist, The Nargun and the Stars, the Cinematic Orchestra, Ivanov, The Swell Season and the FBi Night with Four Tet.

As a few of my Melbourne friends have acknowledged, our little summer festival in Sydney is a breath of fresh air to the Melbourne version which is all indoorsy. Hence the great music, outdoor events and general popular revelry. It's a delicious time of year to be here.

The Sydney Theatre Critics Awards are also on Monday night. It should be another lovely night to catch up, share notes and get ready for another year of theatre shenanigans. I'll be there of course, but will be heading off early to catch some Kosky madness with The Tell-Tale Heart at Carriageworks. 

Until then, I'll see you on the other side of the festival when we all come back down to earth.

Has SAJ gone on strike?

Sorry everyone. SAJ lost his mojo there for a while and found himself in a land far, far away. One reader woke me from my slight slumber this afternoon with a message with enough profanities to sink a small ship.

I've started and stopped and started and stopped reviews on The Pig Iron People, A View of Concrete and the Importance of Being Earnest so many times it isn't funny. Is this what they call writers block? That blank look at the screen and nothing remotely passing through the fingers to the keyboard.
Or maybe my brain decided to stay on holiday even after I physically returned two months ago.

Despite the delay, I thought that I would have a quick look around the traps at a few things I missed in recent headlines.

The Sydney Festival launched two weeks ago (on the worst possible day for a publicist - the election of Barack Obama as US President-Elect) but it seems that the programme is resonating with the public quite well.

La Clique, of course, has already sold out and I heard through the grapevine that the Sydney Theatre Company's The War of the Roses was doing much better than anticipated. In fact their publicist was able to confirm that the epic production starring Cate Blanchett and Robert Menzies "broke the one day sales record for Sydney Theatre Company, selling 1814 tickets on Monday 10 November. It even surpassed "the previous record that was set last year by The 25th Annual Puttnam County Spelling Bee when 1285 tickets sold in one day."

There has also been a overwhelming number of launches which I have to look at closely including Company B, Bell Shakespeare and the Seymour Centre. Last week Griffin also launched their '09 season with an interesting twist - the starting time for their shows will all now be 7pm breaking the long-standing convention of an 8pm start.

In other news, I should draw your attention to the fact that our Rudd Labor Government has this nauseating tendency to have a war on everything (fuel, groceries, unemployment, drugs, homelessness, whalers, pokies, doping in sport etc etc etc blah blah blah).

But now his Government has turned its attention to our little world with some type of war on artists through its instruction to the Australia Council of the Arts to create some protocols for artists to work under. It fits in comfortably with their other new policy of censoring the internet.

If you haven't checked out the draft of the artists protocols on the Australia Council website, I advise you to saunter over and check them out. They're a hell of a read. Interestingly, the draft protocols will only apply to "recipients of government funding". So for those outside the funding loop, eat your heart out.

The nine page document has the simple aim helping "artists and arts organisations
understand existing laws that impact on any work they might do with children." It goes through the usual standards/requirements of police checks, parental permission, restrictions on nudity and sexualisation.

At the end of the draft document, there is a 'draft funding agreement clause' which, if you apply for funding you will no doubt have to sign when you submit your application. In its present form it says something along the lines of the following;

You agree that if you will be employing people under the age of 18 in this Project, with or without financial compensation, that you will comply with the Australia Council’s Protocols for working with children in art as well as any relevant laws as they exist in the state or territory in which you will be working. This may include obtaining background checks, permits and parental consents. If you fail to do so, we may immediately terminate our agreement with you and require you to return the funding provided to you under this Agreement.  

What is interesting about this paragraph is the term "with or without financial compensation" and it appears that it may have caused a minor headache for the staff at the Australia Council.

In quite an astonishing article, David Marr revealed that the Arts Law Centre of Australia, while doing some research into how artists can legally work with children, came along this fine bit of legislation;

Employment of children when they are naked or when any other person is naked is specifically prohibited.

Bang.

So, as Marr puts it, "Bill Henson has broken the law. So has every artist in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and Western Australia who in the past few years painted or photographed a naked child ... The laws of those states forbid the employment of naked children anywhere and any time. That includes on the stage, in films and in artists' studios. They must not be naked and most of those states do not allow them to work where anyone else is naked either."

You have just two weeks to respond to the Australia Council's draft protocols ... which in light of the Arts Law Centre's revelation would seem a bit of a futile process ... unless of course we start advocating for even more unpaid work in the arts industry.

In other news, Crikey writer Alex Mitchell has revealed today that Edmund Capon will be leaving the Art Gallery of New South Wales after 30 years at the helm. Before this story gets too out of hand, my understanding is that the rumour is absolute rubbish.

The Sydney Morning Herald has already swooped but there is nothing in the article. It's just the same old rumour doing the circuit again.

More later and those reviews a little bit sooner than that.

City of Sydney boosts Sydney Festival funding

The City of Sydney will be increasing its funding of the Sydney Festival First Night from $200,000 to $500,000.

This brings the city's total funding of the festival to $1.5 million.

'Festival First Night' which engulfed the CBD with free performances and activities throughout the entire first night of the festival was a big hit with the crowds.

From a free concert with Brian Wilson in the Domain, to salsa lessons in Hyde Park, dancing throughout Martin Place and even a huge triple wedding up Macquarie Street, Festival First Night looks set to become a yearly event in Sydney.

Even though the NSW State Government won't admit that it will continue to fund Festival First Night, this latest move will no doubt put pressure on Arts Minister Frank Sartor and Treasurer Michael Costa.

The increased funding will apparently go through council early next week with formal announcements to be made shortly after.

Image: From official Daily Telegraph Sydney Festival blog

Talk of a European Tour

Ngapartji Ngapartji, the headline Indigenous act at the Sydney Festival this year is currently in discussions with European festivals to tour the show next year.

Countries up for discussion include Portugal, the UK and France with others also in negotiation.

From the Pitjantjatjara language from central South Australia, the title roughly translates as “I give you something, you give me something.” But that ‘something’ could be anything from a cup of water, to a shared experience. There is no limitation on what that ‘something’ is.

It is a beautiful production which begins with audience participation. Not the type of audience participation which causes red faces of ‘don’t pick me, don’t pick me’ but rather it asks the audience to stand together and do the actions to ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’.

Challenges will no doubt face the production company, as they work out how the show which shifts between English and Pitjantjatjara will be translated into Portuguese or French.

The tour will be great news for production company Big hArt, who recently turned down a $750,000 grant from the Australia Council. In the report which was first published by Simon Ferguson of the Daily Telegraph, creative director Scott Rankin explained that it would cost Big hArt $15,000 just to process the bulky application for the grant, only to be offered a comparatively paltry $750,000 over six years - a grant which would then cost the small company $25,000 each year to process the necessary paperwork.

From the dead it re-emerges

The Sydney Morning Herald managed to get some pennies out of its elder brother Rural Press to run a blog entry on the Sydney Festival.

At the end of the festival that is.

A kind reader brought my attention to it as a comment on my previous post. The entry makes for great reading, especially when you consider that the last Green Room they had was on March 21... last year. Welcome back from the dead!

Interestingly, the first comment was from 'Rocket Scientist' who said, "Was there a festival in Sydney? Sorry I must have blinked. I'll keep my eyes peeled for it next year."

If you had been reading the Herald print version or online, you'd be right in making that assumption. But then again, as one Fairfax journo said to me the other day - "what happened to you? You start working for the telegraph and suddenly you become an a******?!"

Bryce Hallett and Valerie Lawson penned a summary article yesterday complaining that, "the program, on the whole, was energetic, fascinating and entertaining, particularly its range of contemporary music and dance, yet it wasn't especially coherent or intellectually challenging."

At the end of the day, the festival left Lawson and Hallett with very little to write about and was more geared towards the Terrier's demographic... intellectual or otherwise. There were no Sir's or Dame's from the RSC for them to gush over or an Italian Maestro for them to swoon.

They also mention there wasn't a genuine hub during the festival. Now I understand why I never saw either Lawson or Hallett down at the Spiegeltent gardens having a drink and chat with all the artists that were hanging out there night after night after night.

They do however bring up some big points that I totally agree with... specifically that the dance programme for the About An Hour series could have been better curatored and that Cirque Ici was... well... I think you and I have had enough... No more writing about the Sydney Festival any more...

In the meantime Fairfax, what do we have to do to get you lot to keep that blog going???

A popular festival? Egads!

I know that I'm supposed to be away, but I thought you may be interested in an article Crikey published.

In the meantime, let me encourage you to visit my temporary Daily Telegraph blog. And if you are at the festival make some comments and tell me what you are seeing and what it's like!

Just before this debate gets a little out of hand; it is probably time for a little perspective.

No, I am not talking about the theatrics going on at the cricket – I am talking about those select few who are calling Fergus Linehan’s program for the Sydney Festival a ‘disappointment’.

The question has to be asked – a disappointment for whom? After three days, it certainly hasn’t been a disappointment for the 200,000 strong crowd who braved the weather at the opening night party on Saturday. It certainly wasn’t a disappointment for those that attended the three works of Nacho Duato at the Lyric on Sunday night. And it certainly wasn’t a disappointment to those who danced in the aisles of the State Theatre to Brian Wilson last night.

On occasion, especially in the arts, you find some media commentators trying to create news where there just isn’t any. This is slowly happening this year once again, as some journalists try to stoke the flames of contention.

In Monday’s The Australian, Matthew Westwood remarked that this year’s festival "lacks balance and is a disappointment to some". Westwood believes that theatre and the visual arts "has only a small presence". "More troubling," he says, "is the total absence of classical music".

Herald Sun writer Chris Boyd even goes as far as saying that Linehan’s 2008 program is "seriously lacking in good judgement and good taste".

Seriously.

Ironically, similar debates occurred late last year between media commentators in Melbourne about the Melbourne International Arts Festival. On one side, you had The Age’s Robin Usher calling for more classical programming, and on the other side, Alison Croggon, a reviewer for The Australian, was defending Artistic Director Kristy Edmunds’ contemporary style.

Now we have the bizarre situation in Sydney, only a few months later, with some in the media suggesting that this year’s festival is too "popular". What is it with festival directors and the arts media? Maybe it was during the infamous resignation of Peter Sellars from the Adelaide Festival in 2002 that the media really got its first whiff of the politicking.

And besides, since when was the arts the domain of those few who can’t be bothered to get their fill from the concert halls of Vienna and Paris?

In fact, if you think about it, Sydney has a year round program in the classical repertoire. If it isn’t the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, or the Australian Chamber Orchestra, or Opera Australia, it’s some promoter who tours out the Paris Opera Ballet Company (as they did last year).

The visual arts is a case in point but are well catered for with the Biennale and theatre has had a good run for its money over the previous two years.

This year it's time to take in some great music, exciting new dance, great bands, a variety of beautiful theatre and circus and have a great fiesta while we are at it. And if we have to give it the name ‘popular’ - then bring it on.

<Nicholas Pickard is running the Daily Telegraph’s Sydney Festival blog live from sites around the city each night until January 26.

Image: Victor Meldrew, another disaffected Sydney Festival patron.

Temporary relocation

Sydney Arts Journo will be closing down for the next three weeks while I will be blogging live from the Sydney Festival for The Daily Telegraph.

To get to my temporary home, please CLICK HERE.

So until January 26, please log on and click away so that Uncle Rupert might like to try his hand at funding a more permanent blog.

Have a good festival everyone!

All quiet on the western front… again.

My apologies to all for dragging my feet to update the blog. I am currently juggling the beginnings of a new contract as well as trying to still find moments to sneak off to the theatre.

Consequently the blog, my poor blog has suffered.

Mentally, I am also gearing up for the Sydney Festival. One of my favourite, favourite events. There is something about a festival that makes the air smell sweet. And whether you are in Sydney, Melbourne, Berlin, London or even my dear Ljubljana, a festival is always a magical experience.

I think it’s the feeling of an international focus, it’s the people on the streets, it’s the fiesta, it’s the summer time.

The launch last Thursday evening at the Opera House gave an insight into what a great festival it will be again this year. There is something about the combination of Artistic Director Fergus Linehan and General Manager Josephine Ridge that creates a great synergy for the festival. They are probably the most friendly and approachable in the game.

The whole festival atmosphere certainly took the arts journo’s from all the major outlets with it, as we all ended up drinking late night cocktails at some Circular Quay bar to the sound of salsa music. And on a school night too.

I was even luckier to have captured some of the festival spirit only the week before. As you may know, I managed to pop down to Melbourne and catch the last gasps of MIAF. Due to some enormous Singapore Airlines plane taking off and an associated publicity stunt coupled with a few thunder storms in Sydney, I managed to miss a show on the Friday evening. But I did catch the fiesta at the Spiegeltent later that evening, befriending an ensemble of Catalan artists from Teatre Lliure who were performing in the show European House.

Coincidentally, their show was the one I was attending the following evening at the Arts Centre. And I have to disagree with Alison Croggon’s review to say that I absolutely adored the show.

European House is boldly advertised as a prologue to Hamlet from the moment the show begins. Facing us is a three story dolls house view of a contemporary home. The kitchen, the lounge, the study, bedrooms, bathroom and garden. It is a voyeur’s view that harks back to something out of Rear Window.

From the moment that the family arrive home from the funeral (of King Hamlet) the beautiful depth of this production digs out a movie-like contemporary tragedy as the fathers death grips the household. The maid quietly goes about her business without making a sound, young Hamlet breaks down while his dear friend Horatio gives him a shoulder to cry on and Gertrude sits silently in her room overwhelmed by sorrow. Until, slightly into the play the house blacks out and King Hamlet’s shadow appears in a red light of the master bedroom.

Purists will dislike European House, but for this audience member it showed the way Shakespeare can be transcend so many forms. It is like discovering Kurosawa, Kozintzev or West Side Story.

This moment dawned on me as the cast stopped in their tracks to the domestic drama and as one faced the audience and starting mouthing the words to ‘No surprises’ by Radiohead.

This is my final fit, my final bellyache with

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises please

Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises please (let me out of here)

It was a beautiful anthem for Hamlet and it was supported by the quintessential video clip image that should have made this compulsory viewing for every high school student in the country.

Bring on the Sydney Festival. But I, sure as hell, want as many alarms and surprises as I can get.

Allocation Exhausted

UPDATE: For the latest in Sydney Festival news please CLICK HERE for my live blog.


Just hours after launching the Sydney Festival 2008 programme, the headline act Bjork has already sold out. Is this a sign of things to come for the ever popular Sydney Festival?

This, Fergus Linehan's third year at the helm, looks to be the most successful festival programme yet and is an exhilarating foray into a musical wonderland and a spectacle of dance.

Breaking with the tradition of exclusivity, Linehan has dispensed with the conga-lines of security buffoons and invited the entire city to the opening night festivities. There'll be no door list for this event.

Kids will be invited into the central plaza of Martin Place for festivities as they write down their 'hopes and dreams for Sydney in the year ahead'. These hopes and dreams will then be broadcast on massive projections throughout the night, reminding us all of our inner innocence, our inner faith. The Place will then transform into a massive outdoor dance venue to the beat of DJ's and local and international musical acts.

The evening will crack along as Brian Wilson and Paul Kelly stage a huge free concert in the Domain. This will be coupled by live bands pumping out salsa, tango, jive under the trees in Hyde Park. Macquarie Street will upstage St Mary's cathedral as three couples from a Sunday Telegraph competition will walk up a red carpet aisle with 20,000 onlookers.

Now, that's an opening night. "Welcome, welcome, welcome."

The programme for this year's festival is really a salute to two distinct areas, Australian Dance and Indigenous Arts which are both represented proudly and with attitude.

For the last couple of years there have been grumble-grumblings from the local community about the lack of Australian content. This year makes amends and Linehan has programmed a thorough series of events that appropriately showcase what many consider to be the real export of Australia's performing arts.

At the apex of the dance programme is the About an Hour series, which returns once again to the Sydney Opera House. It will include the new work from Chunky Move, a contemporary story from Stephen Page, Lucy Guerin's Aether, Kate Champion's The Age I'm In, Shaun Parker's This Show Is About People and the last choreographic work from Tanja Liedtke Construct.

Coupled with three works from Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato and the Compania Nacional De Danza who last came to the Sydney Festival in 2001, this should be a treat of a festival for those who like a bit of toe-tapping.

On the Indigenous front, Linehan has brought together a beautiful programme that cuts across the artistic boundaries of classic Australian musical ballads, urban rock, physical theatre and South Australian story-telling.

For many the Kev Carmody retrospective concert at the State Theatre will be an event not to be missed. Especially when you have a line-up of singers such as Paul Kelly, Dan Kelly, Tex Perkins, Clare Bowditch, The Drones, Missy Higgins, Steve Kilbey and Sara Storer all singing the classic anthems from Carmody's prolific and beautiful career.

The Black Arm Band will also burst out onto the Indigenous stage, but this time at the Opera House with a concert that will feature the stunning vocals of Ursula Yovich (I saw her pick up the microphone late into the night at a party a few months ago, and I implore you to believe the hype... she is awesome), Archie Roach, Bart Willoughby, Emma Donovan, Ruby Hunter, Dan Sultan and again Kev Carmody.

In association with Company B, the festival will also be presenting BIG hART's Ngapartji Ngapartji which when translated from the local South Australian dialect means "I give you something, you give me something." Central to what is billed as a beautiful theatrical journey is the belief that this country must do more to protect and promote local indigenous languages. So watch as the theatrical journey then becomes one of shared cultures and a beautiful candle for honest reconciliation.

The central focus of this year's festival is well and truly music. You are already too late for Bjork, but don't despair because there is also Beach Boy musical visionary Brian Wilson, Sufjan Stevens, Fourplay, Martin Craft, Mice Parade, Joanna Newsom performing with the Sydney Symphony, The Triffids, slam poetry and afro-pop acts from South Africa, the Finnish Iiro Rantala Trio, Pink Martini, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Meow Meow, and my pick of the musical genre - accordion-playing revolutionary Kimmo Pohjonen.

Then of course the is the usual crazy fiesta at the Hyde Park Barracks Museum and the Beck's Festival Bar with acts such as De La Soul, Mudhoney, Amp Fiddler and Spank Rock.

Hyde Park will also be transformed into a Festival Garden with Sydney Arts Journo's favourite summer watering hole the Famous Spiegeltent making a welcome return bringing acts like La Clique with it. Next door in the garden will be the Cirque Ici Tent where Johann Le Guillerm will perform mad circus performance nightly with two electro-acoustic live musicians.

For the theatre set, this is not really the festival for you. Previous years have delivered a feast of the text based magic, but apparently Linehan couldn't find appropriate acts for this years festival. Despite this, there are two shows coming from the National Theatre of Scotland - Black Watch, which tells the story of Scotland's iconic 300-year old Black Watch Regiment and how it has a head on collision with the new 'war on terror'.

The NTS will also present at CarriageWorks, Aalst, a show developed with the Belgian theatre company Victoria. Based on a true story, it is a domestic theatrical journey which follows the trial and conviction of a husband and wife who murder their infant daughter and young son.

My favourite theatrical rebels and theatre-event convention breakers, Urban Theatre Projects present another show this year The Last Highway. Performed in a service station in Bankstown the show will centre itself on the characters that come in and out of the station - sex workers, taxi drivers, shift workers and no doubt your token hoon in his pumped up noise machine.

The stunning and magical James Thieree, nephew of Charlie Chaplin, also makes a very exciting return for the third year in a row with Au Revoi Parapluie. If his previous two shows are any guide, this will be a theatrical delight.

The rest of the festival is made up of all the usual free outdoor events, domain concerts and quirky events made to get everyone in Sydney at least touched by this beautiful event. The pick of them for me is Haircuts by children, where local ten year olds will offer free haircuts at salons in Parramatta and Darlinghurst. The bill says 'after a team of children participate in a series of training workshops with local professional stylists, everyone is invited to get a free haircut.

But, if I was you, I'd get in early. This festival is going to capture a city and send ripples of creativity into a state of mass fiesta... and without a doubt the ticketek website will be in a constant state of 'Allocation Exhausted'.


Sydney Arts Journo Festival Picks

Theatre
Black Watch - National theatre of Scotland
James Thieree - Au Revoir Parapluie
National Theatre of Scotland - Aalst
Ngapartji Ngapartji at Belvoir St
Urban Theatre Projects - The Last Highway

Dance and Performance
Nacho Duato and the Compania Nacional De Danza
Lucy Guerin - Aether
Cirque Ici
La Clique at the Famous Spiegeltent
Tanja Liedtke - Construct

Music
Sufjan Stevens
House of the Holy Afro - Third World Bunfight
Pink Martini
Chromeo
Kimmo Pohjonen

Big questions being asked

I'll keep this short - but here is your news for Friday the 13th.

Big questions are being asked within the arts industry of NSW about funding cuts expected to be announced.

Of particular concern is the Sydney Festival receiving an additional $1 million for 'a free outdoor opening event centred on the CBD' and arts infrastructure and community arts programs receiving a $2.7 million cut.

As a colleague mentioned, the arts in NSW on the surface looks all glamourous, but underneath it's a house of cards.

It really is a simple equation. What priority do community and arts programs have within the State Government? It should be three things; health, education and community. We aren't talking about the arts elite here. Nor are we talking about the major performing arts companies. This won't hurt them.

It's a very sad day.

Well... it's a forum...

Here is a little news article I wrote for ArtsHub that I reckon might be of great interest to all you theatre and arts punters out there.

I know that the last forum I recommended was totally underwhelming, but maybe, just maybe this might be worthwhile.

"What will Sydney’s creative future look like in 2030? That is the question to be asked at the first City Talk presented this year at the Sydney Town Hall on 24 July.

Presented by the City of Sydney and the Sydney Morning Herald, the talk will be compered by 702 ABC Radio Sydney Breakfast host Adam Spencer who will be in discussion with Sydney Festival Director and Chief Executive Fergus Linehan, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor and Company B Artistic Director, Neil Armfield.

'Sydney is the cultural capital of Australia,' Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP said, 'and obviously this is a position we would like to keep up to 2030 and beyond.'

This panel discussion with three of the most influential cultural figures of Sydney will look at the future of the city’s creative and cultural life as part of the City of Sydney's Sustainable Futures 2030 project. The outcomes of the public discussion will be then used by the City to further develop a vision for the future.

The Lord Mayor is encouraging public involvement saying, 'this is your opportunity to be part of the discussion about our city's future. Where do we want to be creatively in 2030?' Ms Moore said.

The City of Sydney prides itself on supporting a diverse range of major cultural events including the Sydney Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Art & About, Sydney Writers’ Festival as well as smaller community events.

It has centred much of its support around the City of Villages concept which seeks to create cultural hubs within many of the different sectors of the city. In November last year it announced the Live Lanes Program to ‘breath new life into CBD laneways with a range of creative initiatives to encourage more activity’.

The first City Talk is a free event and will be held on Tuesday 24 July at 8pm at the Sydney Town Hall from 6.30pm.

For more information, CLICK HERE."

Image: City of Sydney Media

Panel Beating

One of the blogs I pop into regularly is Histriomastix. It's an excellent way of keeping up with the news, events and gossip of the theatre industry in New York.

Hosted by David Cote, a critic and magazine editor for all the good publications in that end of town, the blog often talks of the theatre forums that he takes part in and reports on.

In fact, they have a series of them coming up which tackle a range of issues including: Next Generation Critics; Theatre, the Media and Blogs; Why Theatre Still Matters; and The subscriber and the season (How audiences are killing the theatre).

My mind boggles at the opportunity. Imagine a Woody Allen street scape, a winter wind blows, you grab your duffel coat and scarf and catch the subway to some little theatre on the edge of 42nd street. You have a good, healthy and passionate discussion, then walk to the nearest bar and de-brief.

The closest thing that we have to forums are the occasional ones put on by Currency House. Company B also hosts the Philip Parsons Memorial Lecture and the Sydney Festival has talks with international guests at the Mint in January. And each of the events is always packed out.

What is needed in Sydney is the opportunity for these discussion to happen regularly. The rarity of the events means that when they do happen, issues get washed over and the amount that needs to be said gets pushed aside. The topic area is often too broad and discussion gets lost.

Coming face-to-face with your comrades, the critics, the managers, the financiers and the columnists and having regular discussions reflecting on the industry and where the issues surrounding its existence would have a positive effect that would open up the passion and honesty of its members.

People would become more accustomed to being constructive, critical and considerate and not so precious of their opinions. It would open the industry up and make it more accessible on so many different levels.

Just for a moment imagine. The call is put out - we are going to have a chat about - let's say - The subscriber and the season. It's a Monday night. Belvoir Street is dark and agree to host the event. We put the call out and get the heads of a couple of theatre companies together. Throw in some writer from a newspaper and maybe some accountant who works behind the theatre scene. Add some visiting director or producer that has flown in from Auckland or Singapore or Berlin and set the watch.

And like a good episode of Donahue, get someone to run around with a microphone in their hand and get people to put forward their point in an atmosphere of universal goodwill.

I agree that it is better to act than talk, but in an environment where everyone is a little scared and a little intimidated, it could be inspired and open up a world of possibility and healthier industry overall.





Image (top): Nataliedee
Image (bottom): Phil Donahue, courtesy Wikipedia

A Festival For Insomniacs

The whistle blows and the fireworks bang. Suddenly Sydney is beating to the sound of theatre, dance, art, performance and music in a dizzying spell that captures the imagination of a city often too cool to dance to someone else’s tune.

But dance they did. Fergus Linehan, Artistic Director, suddenly realised he had gripped the city on the second weekend when “we had about 18 or 19 things going at the same time and there were tens of thousands of people pouring out of the domain concert. The Hyde Park Becks bar was humming – there were all these kids sitting outside, and I love this, because they are too young, they just sit outside and listen to the music.

“You also had a huge queue of people waiting to get in and it was just jumping inside. And then down at the Spiegeltent, the garden was absolutely full, and all the international performers are in there. And there was just a moment and I thought ‘ok, we now have a festival city’.”

It hasn’t always been like this. In fact, it’s never been like this. Linehan believes that “it broke through to a broader consciousness; the overall event just seemed to be really well loved, a warmth, people were almost affectionate towards it”.

The Sydney Festival which wrapped up last weekend, had a programme of over 100 events incorporating the talents of 780 performers from around the world. It was an extraordinary programme which put its technicolour fingerprint on the face of the city. It’s no wonder that they engaged with it - it was so terribly hard to ignore.

It’s Fergus Linehan’s second year at the helm, and he has built on the cumulative success of his debut last year as well as the previous festivals since its inception in 1977. It attracts around 1 million people making it the biggest cultural festival in the country.

What differentiated this year’s festival, however, was the breathless way it changed the city. Linehan believes that “in general there wasn’t necessarily the one thing that absolutely jumped out. The whole thing has gathered a momentum. It is bigger than all of us.”

In a programme of events that included Lou Reed’s Berlin, a Gate Theatre Beckett trilogy with Ralph Fiennes, Cristoph Marthaler’s Seemanslieder, Maly Drama’s Uncle Vanya, Stomp, Akram Khan, Batsheva Dance Company and a hot air balloon symphony floating over the city, Sydney as a whole engaged with the cultural events like never before.

The Sydney Festival’s accessibility is an enormous factor in its appeal. Last year the NSW State Government provided an extra injection of funds to specifically bring down the cost of tickets. As well as that, each event has an allocation of tickets for ‘next to nix’ on the day of the performance.

“There’s a whole gang of people that did the whole festival like this,” says Linehan. “And every morning they go down to Martin Place to get their tickets, queuing from 3 or 4am and going to shows that night. And they were doing it night after night. It’s for insomniacs this festival!”

If only locals showed such passion and commitment for the arts scene already on their doorstep. Which, when you know and understand Sydney, highlights the amazing challenge that Linehan has managed to overcome. In fact, he believes that audiences here are “very experiential and you’ll never get wrapped across the knuckles for mucking around with form and tradition”.

This is a city of 4 million people spread out over 12,000 square kilometres. Bringing together people for anything is a hard ask. The 2007 festival however, or more specifically, the overall programme of events with their strategic placement through the city, has meant that it is exposing cultural events to an extraordinary amount of people. He has proven that it can be done.

From the Sydney Opera House, to Circular Quay, Hyde Park, the Domain and Parramatta, the Sydney Festival had its pink street banners along every esplanade and city street screaming - ‘This is our city in summer’. And perhaps that new slogan has struck a chord with the citizens. This is OUR city.

Linehan likes to point out that “this is always a festival that is specifically for Sydney-siders.” And he believes that festivals must always be programme driven and “if you get that right, it all just fits in place”. Which is why it’s so hard to put your finger on the reason why his festivals work so well.

There is very little criticism of Linehan’s tenure. He is a darling of the public, the power brokers and the media. In fact, most journalists tend to be more consumed by the fact that he wears a t-shirt and sneakers to work, rather than commenting on the semblance of the festival he puts together. This year, however, more than previously, the lack of local content was glaringly obvious. Out of the entire programme only eight events had Australian acts. This disappointed many, particularly contemporary performance companies, visual arts organisations and the local music industry.

Despite this, Linehan has managed to awaken something in Sydney that was never truly exploited – a passionate, culturally aware and sophisticated group of party animals.

One of the major things that Linehan would change if he could, is the length of the Festival. “I think we struggle with 21 days – it’s a little long – and audiences are wrecked by the end of it. And you can feel people thinking – if I never go to another show again it won’t be too soon! I am going home, and I am going to get out the box set of the West Wing and I’m going to watch it!”

A festival for insomniacs it really is.





Photo Credit: Prudence Upton, courtesy of the Sydney Festival

Arts Journalism Simplified

Some of the things that arts journalists write in Sydney beggar belief.

In today's Sydney Morning Herald, Bryce Hallett and Valerie Lawson wrote a wrap-up story of the Sydney Festival. Overall it was a relatively straight forward article - the festival was a success, it made such-and-such profit, wasn't that show wonderful, shame about this and that etc etc.

Then, in a little corner of the article, the Herald decides to put a little box of festival 'Hits' and 'Misses' entitled The Wash-Up. (Does anyone have any idea what exactly The Wash-Up means?) And under 'Misses' is the wonderful production of Seemanslieder. This was a production I loved. So many of my colleagues loved it. Sure it wasn't for everyone - but a 'miss'???

I quickly refer back to the SMH review by John Shand. What was it he said about Seemanslieder?

"It was daring, funny, surreal and poignant..."

Suddenly Hallett and Lawson decide to then earmark the production as something else, saying:

"It has always been Linehan's aim to make the broad-based festival intelligent, accessible and fun but he is not sure why audiences embraced an event that was not all plain sailing, as Christoph Marthaler's lengthy mosaic Seemannslieder testified. One reader took issue with the Herald's review and called the performance 'a dog'."

Indeed, I remember reading that letter. Took a cursory glance at it and thought that Seemanslieder certainly wasn't for everyone and what a shame that the said letter writer didn't appreciate the magic of the production.

From there, Hallet and Lawson decide to call Seemanslieder 'slow, studied and interrupted by audience walk-outs'. Surely, after years reporting on the arts, they should be aware that some performances are not always for everyone.

There were some events that many championed that I disliked. But that hardly warrants the tag of a 'miss'. Thankfully for us, Fergus Linehan is the festival director and a little more measured in branding events in such simplistic terms as a hit or a miss.

Review: Uncle Vanya (Дядя Ваня)

Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov
Sydney Festival
Sydney Theatre - 23 January 2007


Recently, I was discussing with a Russian friend of mine the great canon of work in Australia theatre. I asked him at one point whether there was a translation of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.

Wryly, he looked at me and said "Why? We have Chekhov."

Indeed.

And this week, Sydney audiences have the most glorious fortune of being able to have a bit of that Chekhov for ourselves - Uncle Vanya. And it is a Chekhov in the most dazzling light of intricacy and understatement. It is a breath-taking journey that captures human emotion in an almost photographic way.

Declan Donnellan on Checkov said he "clearly sees the distance between what we want to say and the meagre words we have to say it". The power of this notion is gently placed on your shoulder over three hours. It tends you. It holds you until the final moments when it makes your hair stand on end as you slide down into the plays despair.

Russian theatre, so steeped in the traditions of Stanislavsky, make the newer acting techniques appear so infantile. The staging of this production, the seemlessness, the performances, it is all so intricate, that from one scene to the next, you are always unsure of how they got there.

But then you are overwhelmed by the sheer weight of what each of these characters say and the weightlessness in which they stage it. This production of Uncle Vanya is the best theatre you will experience.

I wish I could better phrase my feelings on last night's performance, however, I have been so forcefully reminded that the distance between what we want to say and the meagre words we have to say it makes that almost impossible.


Photo Credit: Prudence Upton, courtesy of the Sydney Festival

Review: The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac

The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac
Sydney Festival
The Studio, Sydney Opera House - 19 January 2007


To get to the Sydney Opera House for a 'performance art' drag piece by American Taylor Mac, I happened to walk past the Hon. Brendon Nelson, Australian Minister for Defence, having a late night Chinese supper around a lazy susan.

It was slightly surreal. The sun was setting over Sydney Harbour on a warm summer evening, and my mind flickered as I looked at the honourable member thinking of his department's woes in that little theatre of war in the Middle East.

"Enjoying your dinner Minister?"

The surreal then became a little more strange as I took my seat to watch Taylor Mac dress and 'deconstruct' his take on the War on Terror.

I wish that the Minister had been there, sharing this experience among the hearty crowd that guffawed and applauded the beautiful cynicism of the show.

Everything that Taylor Mac does in his show has the aim to break conventions of theatre performance and political satire. He isn't your typical Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Perfect eyeshadow and makeup is replaced by clown like lines and layers of glitter. Immaculate frocks are replaced by misfitting outfits, put on backwards, upside down and inside out. Oh, and he sings his own songs. He's more Jack Smith than Liza Minnelli.

If the minister had had the proper advice, he could have been there to see what is obviously the direct result of what happens to a person when their country is up to their neck in violence and extremism. A country where influential groups actively protest against abortion and homosexuality and yet gleefully support war and the death penalty. It really is mind-boggling.

As much as Taylor Mac made jokes about unattended baggage, terror alerts and the Iraq War, it is obvious that the position that the US finds itself is taking its toll on its more moderate citizens. Even an intelligent and charming performer like Taylor Mac.

His last song 'There is nothing to fear, but fear itself' wrapped up a show which could be seen as a call of desperation. A protest which demands some sense in a world that feels as though it is spinning out of control. The Beast of Taylor Mac may very well be called the Beast of Burden of Taylor Mac.




Photo Credit: Prudence Upton, courtesy of the Sydney Festival

Review: Eh Joe

Eh Joe by Samuel Beckett
Sydney Festival
Parade Theatre - 18 January 2007


Eh Joe, the only piece written by Samuel Beckett specifically for television, could be one of the first texts that flags the coming of reality TV.

I am loath to compare Beckett to reality TV, but Eh Joe has all the elements that intrude a viewer on the ugly life of an ordinary person. Written in 1965, this production from the Gate Theatre Dublin directed by Canadian film maker Atom Egoyan, brings to the stage the ultimate in invasive voyeurism.

A man is alone in his bed-sit. He checks the windows, the doors, the cupboard. He is alone with his mind. Not even a draft will enter his room as he closes the curtains to the world and sits alone on his bed.

Then a voice, a female voice from his past, begins. The audience is then left alone with the words, as a camera off-stage projects his face onto a scrim and we are left to watch and listen, seeing every detail of his eyes, wrinkles, mouth, beating chest.

It's uncomfortable hearing the words of the woman in Joe's mind. Horrific imagery is followed swiftly by castigation as she reminds him of the past and his loneliness.

Like reality TV it was an offensive experience of intrusion. I didn't want to hear this verbal assault with all of those people around. The slightest noise, a chuckle, a wrapper, a cough constantly reminded me that I wasn't alone, and neither was Joe.

Theatre is the great art that brings people together to collectively share an experience. But sharing gives the idea of something positive encountered by a group. For the first time in my theatre going life, I didn't want anyone else to be sharing this with me. I wanted to be alone, just as Joe, and I didn't want to be reminded so starkly that life is the people in it - otherwise it's just the 'silence of the grave without the maggots'.



Photo Credit: Prudence Upton, courtesy of the Sydney Festival

Review: Seemanslieder

Seemanslieder/Op hoop van zegen
Sydney Festival
Sydney Theatre - 10 January 2007

By securing Cristoph Marthaler's Seemanslieder for the Sydney Festival, Fergus Linehan has again presented a theatrical masterpiece. Unknown to many Australians, Swiss director Marthaler is well known in Europe as a controversial figure developing a theatre that is thematically challenging and abstract. Michael Billington of the Guardian calls Marthaler's work "pessimistic and anarchic... a Marxist of the Groucho tendency."

Produced by the Flemish company NT Gent, Seemanslieder is a meditative spectacle that sinks the audience into the water to float, to watch and to reflect. But you have to work at it though. There’s a tendency for Australian audiences to expect pragmatic performance and there’s a tendency for mainstage Australian theatre makers to satisfy it. This makes Seemanslieder such refreshing theatre.

Walking into the Sydney Theatre you are welcomed by a working waiting room stained with the breath and oil of a hundred people waiting for those gone to the sea. A waitress stands at a bar, a man at a piano, women waiting on benches and men loitering.

One by one, the characters shift and change, entering the space with a fluidity that can only come from the familiarity of waiting. For each of the characters waiting is someone you know and as soon as you recognise this, the better the journey.

The waiting is then explored. Through a mixture of traditional, choral and popular song, Chaplinesque physicality, literature and storytelling, the characters tell you tales of lost ones, of lost hope and the force of nature upon their community.

Primarily set in the late 1950's, reminiscent of the time that the dyke's broke and flooded Holland, the text and music also show the power of the ancient sea with Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, Joseph Conrad and Herman Heijermans’ Dutch classic, Op Hoop Van Zegen (God Help Us).

The characters, the music, the text fill the space, using every corner of the stage, the walls, the nooks and cranny's creating a piece that is the essence of ensemble. And for two and a half hours it envelops you, sucking you in.

If you find yourself seeking conventional theatre you will miss the simple beauty of the music and stories of Seemanslieder. The detail in which Marthaler presents these everyday people is stunning in its celebration of the ordinary and all of this makes it extraordinarily moving.

Also published on NT Gent.

Feature article about Cristoph Marthaler here and here.

Photo Credit: Pile Deprez